East Washington 

"To-night I have been wandering awhile in the capital, which is all lit up. The illuminated rotunda looks life."
   – Whitman, from Specimen Days







March 17

We drove up East Washington toward the capital -- St. Parick's day, saturday, a March shift of blue sky has overcome the gray of February and the buildings, so many of them brand new, look clean and glitter now, and match the bald white round dome of the capital itself just up the road. We can imagine the same roadway so many years ago leading up to the grand building of the city, its massive pillars and shoulders sturdy and timeless stationed there at the isthmus hill, a sort of blessing of what could be inside its halls. We walk along to the coffee shop – it as the street level, windows looking out over the traffic and the city now out and walking again in happy troves. Colors of spring clothes, bikes spinning along the street bike paths, lights blinking bright at the intersections, and who knows, the slightest breeze of the memory of that old democracy as it trails down into the city neighborhoods in all directions like unseen branches sprouting the greenest buds.